Saskatchewan and Manitoba 😭
Awwwww hell naw. Pretty sure everyone there is suicidal and desperately trying to escape. Not to mention that 98% of the population is all concentrated in Winnipeg since the rest is an Arctic tundra and impenetrable pine forests.
Yeah, 500k might get you further in bumfuck nowhere, but good luck finding a grocery store, hospital, or job within 50 miles of you.
Your closest neighbor will also probably be Blind Terry who fought in Korea and is very racist.
Pennsylvania, depends on what you’d like exactly. Small city? Lancaster fits the bill perfectly. Big city? You have Pittsburg. Massive city? Philadelphia.
I’d vouch for Lancaster though, it’s very blue, very diverse, the area is on the cheaper side; and the city is thriving and growing extremely well. It’s a quaint little city. Further you get access to the absolutely gorgeous Appalachia with just a 20min-1 hour drive to various breathtaking national parks, state parks, lakes, mountains, and game lands.
The city is very walkable and is mainly pedestrian focused with a pretty good public transit system. Everyone also bikes everywhere and they are more common then cars. There are also several colleges and the historical Franklin and Marshall College so the area is maintained well and looked after.
Plenty of houses and apartments for less then 500k and the vast majority of the market is under 800k with not many outliers.
Climate is temperate year round, you have access to a major city as Philly is 1 hour away, there are scenes for pretty much anything, LGBT? Check. Art? Check. Film? Check. Alcohol? Check. Politics? Check. There’s something for every hobby.
Due to Franklin and Marshall and several companies there is a decently sized programmer, streamer, Youtuber, and computer scene as well since you might be interested in that.
The broadband and internet infrastructure is also very good and you can have direct access to fiber ground wire if you pay, so internet speeds can be lightening fast.
It honestly ticks all your boxes!
The automation is because it’s always been a felony not to register, same as it is in virtually every country with mandatory service, so to avoid the horrifically needless societal effects that come from giving someone a felony for a random crime, they simply automated it.
Basically what they did with social security years ago. Used to also be a crime to not sign up by a certain age, so they just started immediately registering all children at birth.